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Clerical error may impact two St. Johns schools

A data-entry mistake that assigned nearly 2,000 students the wrong race on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test could impact a couple of St. Johns County public schools.

The schools — Gamble Rogers Middle and St. Augustine High — may drop a notch on the state’s accountability scale, district officials said Friday.

The error affects the district on federal No Child Left Behind standards, which take race into account but doesn’t alter the schools’ grades or the district’s status as the state’s top FCAT performer, officials said.

The information sent to the state made it appear as if no black, Asian or Native American students took the FCAT this year. But every student who took the test did have them scored and tabulated as part of the district’s results, said Pam Stewart, St. Johns deputy superintendent.

The district was able to track individual FCAT performance, but was not able to evaluate the performance of black, Asian and Native American students as groups, Stewart said.

The impact at Gamble Rogers Middle and St. Augustine High School, she said, may be that the state becomes more involved in monitoring and direct support.

Scott Sherman, the district’s senior director of accountability, said he noticed the error when the state released demographic test results in late July. He alerted the state and sent the correct information.

The district had to formally appeal the data, a process usually reserved for districts looking to improve their test results.

“It’s very unusual,” Stewart said, “to ask the state for an appeal to make your data look worse.”